


A Harmonic Connection

by arioseDreamer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Genderfluid Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, NSFW, there's porn in the first chapter but don't get used to it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-20 06:52:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9480065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arioseDreamer/pseuds/arioseDreamer
Summary: Shiro has been a musician since he was a child. Now an adult playing as a soloist in orchestras across the country, he's beginning to lose the love he had for music all his life, until he unexpectedly walks into the life of Keith, frontman for a small-time bar band who is clearly so in love with what he does. Keith inspires Shiro. Their one night stand becomes a morning after, and the only thing they might love more than music is each other.





	1. Under the Lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [watermelloon (linumlea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linumlea/gifts), [veituriel (skykiss)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skykiss/gifts).



> "You know what music is? God's little reminder that there's something else besides us in this universe, a harmonic connection between all living beings, every where, even the stars."
> 
> The August Rush inspired AU that no one asked for! I took an idea of tumblr user peanut-jars (ao3: watermelloon (word _end) ), took one of my favorite movies and ran with it. Thank you for the inspiration. 
> 
> Dedicated/gifted also to the lovely veituriel (skykiss) who has been the best beta I could ask for.

Shiro fussed with his clothes, anxiously smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles and tugging his bow tie into and out of alignment. He couldn't help the nervous part of him that surfaced before a performance, and fiddling with his clothes helped him ignore the tremble in his fingers. He looked at himself in the mirror, sharp in a tuxedo, black hair with the family tuft of white at the front looking fit to match his clothes. The only thing wrong was the damn bow tie. He reached for it again.

 “Takashi.” His father strode into the green room, a model of confidence, and Shiro automatically straightened his posture. He knocked Shiro’s hands away from his crooked bow tie, not unkindly, and straightened it for the young man.  “Takashi, do try to relax.” Mr. Shirogane rested his hands on his son’s shoulders. “Another performance, you've played larger, more prestigious venues than this.” Narrowly, perhaps, but it was a lie born of kindness not malice. “It’s about to begin. Let’s see a smile.”

 Shiro offered one, trying to steady frazzled nerves with even breaths. His father’s face flickered its own smile like a windswept candle in his direction before ushering him out the door. Shiro paused to lift his cello and bow and move them carefully. He walked a slow and steady tempo, feeling his heart beat out of sync with his footsteps and willing it to slow. As the wooden neck of his cello warmed under his fingers, Shiro felt the sense of calm the instrument always gave him, and tried to instill it in himself. He failed, and his heart swept through an _accelerando_ as he drew nearer to the stage, before coming to a sharp halt on the fringes of light.

 At the edge of the curtain he hesitated a step, listening. His name, seven calmly spoken syllables introduced by the conductor, beckoned him forward. He stepped into blinding white light, focused on the tiny black square of his music stand and the delicate shape of the stool for him to sit behind it. He bowed to an applauding crowd he couldn't see and took his seat. Shiro settled himself and the large instrument while the conductor took his place, and at the first downward sweep of the baton, set his bow to the strings, and played.

 

\---

 

“ _Pidge!_ ” The electric shriek of feedback cut off swiftly at the shout.

 “Sorry, sorry!” Pidge, small and mousy behind large round glasses and a tech board nearly as long as they were tall, apologized as they made minute adjustments scrambling to get around the right side of the goliath piece of tech. “Keith, you can’t move the mic forward any more,” they said irritably, shoving their glasses up their nose. “I can’t do anything about the feedback if you keep pushing it in the way of the speakers.”

 Keith ran his hand through his hair, sighed. Pidge had said as much to him all afternoon. The speakers were as close to the edge of the stage as anyone felt comfortable having them. “Alright, toss me that electrical tape. I’ll put a line down so I won’t cross it during the show.” He caught the white roll of tape that flew at him in a fastpitch arc with an audible smack against his palm. “Pidge, I’m _sorry._ ”

 “Then listen when I tell you things the first time,” they snapped. “I can’t adjust things manually if I’m on your synth and the computer can only do so much.” Pidge preferred to play during shows, but had threatened more than once that afternoon—as they scrambled from the keyboard to the sound board for the third, fourth, fifth time—to record everything and play it through the speakers so they could run tech.

 Lance, adjusting the tuning of his bass, sniggered as Keith knelt to lay down his tape line. A staccato yelp broke his laughter when another fastball roll of tape struck his arm. “You, too, pretty boy,” Pidge told him, stoically ignoring the slender man’s pout. “I’ve told you twice already today, too.” Lance set aside his instrument, and grudgingly knelt to place his own line down. “Nuh-uh, back it up a foot or two. You can pass that line, the mic can’t.”

 Keith smiled to himself while he stood. His band. They bickered like family and he loved every moment. Hunk quietly observed most of it from behind his drumset, offering humor or a stark tangent when heads got too hot. Lance snarked with the same ease that Keith played riffs on his guitar. Pidge was officially their keyboard player, unofficially their manager and technician, and had been since high school when they started playing together in Hunk’s garage. And, damn, if they didn’t have what it took for it. However, Pidge preferred to keep to the back, playing their support and voice of reason. Keith, ultimately, was the lynchpin of the band.

 “Alright let’s run it once more, then grab dinner,” he said decisively. Heads snapped up to give him their attention.  “They’ve got a DJ until we’re on at ten. If we can get through it without Pidge vaulting over the keyboard again, it’s my treat.”

 

\---

 

Shiro’s eyes flickered between the tripping notes on his page and the whipping blur of a baton, his eyes more on the conductor than the sheet. Behind him the orchestra played in a frenzy, crescendo into a climax of melody before silence, and the only sound in the entire theater was his cello. The conductor turned, his baton taking an easier pace, conducting the quiet addition of violins with one hand and Shiro’s solo with the other. Shiro’s focus narrowed to the flowing motion of his baton, flashing white under the lights. The music poured from his instrument, summoned by the bow on its strings, and Shiro barely had to glance at music he’d memorized weeks ago.

The rest of the orchestra was cued in. The theater was suddenly full of sound, bright and airy. And, with a soft flourish, it ended. Shiro’s racing heart was from thrill, not nerves. Not a note out of tempo or tune. A burst of applause sprang from the crowd, and Shiro stood, bowed twice, and with a nod to the conductor walked off stage.

 

Winding down from the concert was difficult. Shiro carefully stowed his cello, accepted his father’s congratulations with appropriate grace. He’d removed his bow tie, meticulously hung his dress shirt and tailcoat on their hangers. He was buttoning a new shirt on when Coran burst into the room, high on the energy of a concert done well.

“Shiro!” The red-haired man greeted him with waving hands and an infectious enthusiasm that bled away all of Shiro’s attempts to relax.

 “Coran! It was magnificent, wasn’t it?” Shiro felt his face splitting into a grin, mirrored beneath Coran’s mustache.

 “Absolutely, my friend. _You_ were magnificent, the rest of us were merely honored to play alongside you.”

 “Nonsense. An orchestra isn’t made by soloists.”

 “So modest,” Coran tutted. “But I’m not here to embarrass you or listen to you say how you aren’t that amazing,” he continued. Coran spoke in a rush, as if the words couldn’t leave his lips fast enough, racing each other to be heard. He played his violin the same way, fingers dancing over the strings at speeds starships would envy. He slung an arm around Shiro’s shoulders, pausing the assault of vocabulary to glance around conspiratorially before declaring, “I’m here, Shiro, to take you out! Come on! We’re in New York! Celebrate a little!”

 Shiro hesitated, but cheer and impulse was more catching than a plague. “Alright, where have you got in mind?”

 

Shiro was positive they were overdressed for this bar as he thumbed the edge of his wallet, hands stuck in his pockets. There was a bit of a line, only long enough to let him listen to the music pouring from inside the place and have the inkling of a second thought before he was swapping the cover for his driver’s license and Coran was towing him inside. Here, the sound was deafening, a cacophony spilling from speakers and mouths. Music and voices and laughter blended together, so fully taking over his sense of sound that Shiro didn’t hear what Coran said to him before he disappeared, despite his friend having shouted the words in his ear.

Shiro didn’t move from the spot Coran left him, taking in the scene before him. It wasn't a bar; it was a club. Bass heavy music filled the tight space and patrons pressed themselves together, more flesh than cloth, greeting strangers like friends as they moved with the beat. The light was dim, but colored strobes cast curious shadows and everything was awash in reds and blues. It was hot; too many people and poor air circulation brought sweat beading on Shiro’s face within minutes. There was a stage on one wall, adjacent to the edge Shiro lurked on. A few people stood on it, adjusting instruments and equipment, but nothing could be heard from them.

Coran appeared at his elbow just before an electric screech split the room. Bodies jerked to cover ears, including Shiro, who flinched and peered suspiciously toward the stage. He pulled his hands away from his ears as a—boy? Girl? Shiro couldn’t tell—leaned into the mic over the keyboard, saying, “Sorry about that, folks. But now that we have your attention…”

Shiro accepted the bottle of beer from Coran as a drumbeat picked up where the keyboard player left off. Coran disappeared into the crowd again. Shiro didn’t begrudge his absence; in all likelihood, somewhere in the crowd was his long-distance boyfriend. Shiro wandered closer to the stage. The guitarist and bass player picked up on the drummer’s beat, and Shiro found, despite the dissonant start, that he liked the change in music. The keyboardist, abandoning their instrument while the rest of the band cued themselves in, fussed with something technological, scowling at the knobs they adjusted. Shiro watched them curiously for a moment, but his attention snapped back to the men on stage when their frontman began to sing.

Shiro’s wasn’t the only attention which immediately refocused. Around him, cell phone screens blinked to life, cameras trained on the dark-haired young man with the captivating voice. The singer’s voice was a melodic tenor, and had a slight accent which Shiro pegged as Southern.  Other voices joined in harmony, but Shiro--with the classical training that allowed him to pick out a single instrument’s melody from an entire orchestra--had ears for the leading voice only. The song was familiar to the patrons of the club; some of them sang along. More of them started dancing again when they picked up the beat, and soon cell phones disappeared and Shiro was a rock in a rolling sea of living bodies. He edged closer to the stage, knowing it wouldn’t affect how he heard the band but unable all the same to resist the gravity that tugged insistently at him. The crowd allowed him to pass through, like a prophet parting a sea of flesh that stank of alcohol, more concerned with their dancing and their drinks than the people onstage. Shiro’s own beer was sweating in his hand, long forgotten. He stopped about five feet from the stage. It wasn’t tall, raised maybe two feet from the rest of the floor, but looking up at the young man, Shiro felt like he was looking up at God from the bottom of the ocean.

Beautiful was the only word Shiro had for him. Age was hard to guess in the shifting light, but Shiro thought he looked somewhere in his early twenties. His clothes clung to lean muscle like they were painted on him. Flashing strobes cast him in red and blue and green and yellow, catching in all the angles of his body, refracting off the guitar like fractured pieces of a rainbow. It was impossible, in this lighting, to tell if his hair was actually black or just a rich brown, but it was gathered in a tiny poof of ponytail at the base of his skull. His bangs cast shadows over his face, and the singer jerked his head to shift them without taking his hands off the guitar.

Shiro watched, enthralled, through the whole set. They were good, and more importantly, they looked _happy_ up there. Under the intense lights onstage, Shiro could see sweat sticking their hair to their faces. When the frontman shook his head again to fling his hair out of his face, drops of it caught the light. In his hands, the bottle of beer had lost its chill some time ago, but Shiro kept hold of the sweating glass if only as a reminder of where he was. When the band—had they introduced themselves?—excused themselves for the night, Shiro finally looked away from the stage. He turned instead to the bottle like he couldn’t remember how it had come to him in the first place. In his meticulous inspection of the beer, Shiro couldn’t help but be startled by the hand that snaked into view and plucked it from his hands.

He followed its journey from his possession into the orbit of this stranger. The lips that pressed to the top and crooked into a smirk as he took a swig belonged to none other the singer Shiro had admired all night.

 

\---

 

Keith had noticed the man in the crowd who attentively watched their concert. Staring was more accurate for what he was doing, and Keith couldn't help the few times he met the stranger’s eyes and stared back. He’d close his eyes to break the contact, sing to the mic like a lover, but when he opened them again the man who stood out from the crowd was still looking up in--was it awe? And oh did he stand out! Alone and unmoving while the crowded bar gyrated around him, one body indistinguishable from the ones around it, dressed too well for the place, he drew Keith’s eyes with the magnetism of difference.

Keith couldn't help but seek him out after their set. They tended to scatter afterward anyway. Pidge went to chatter the ear off the inept DJ who had made the unfortunate decision to adjust their carefully prepared soundboard. Lance and Hunk went, Keith assumed, to skirt around the fact that they were flirting with each other and still have nothing come of it.

Keith put his guitar in its stand and hopped off stage. Pidge and the DJ already had the music on, and he went mostly unnoticed as he slipped through the dancing crowd. The man had wandered away to a quieter corner, staring at the bottle he hadn't sipped from all night. Keith wasn't sure what possessed him, maybe the spirit of Lance’s love for terrible pickup lines or the high he was riding from a successful show, but he plucked the neglected bottle from the man’s hands and raised it to his lips.

The attractive stranger followed its journey to his face. Keith smirked as he sipped, even though the beer was warm. “Shame to let it go to waste.” The words were out of his mouth before he registered them in his head, but he refused to be embarrassed for them.

The stranger watched, dumbfounded. “The way you play is amazing,” he said breathlessly, as if he’d just realized Keith expected a response. Keith had to take another heavy swig to cover his delight.

“Thanks. It's a good feeling, being up there, y'know?” Keith gestured with the bottle toward the empty stage.

“Yeah, I do.” The stranger spoke fondly enough to rouse Keith’s curiosity.

“You play?”

“Cello.” Maybe it was the way the man was dressed, but Keith wasn't surprised to learn that he played something like that. He took another sip of warm beer, and tried to imagine him on stage. What did cellists even wear? Something nice probably, if his current dress was anything to go by.

“I bet the girls just throw themselves at you,” Keith quipped.

“Oh, but girls love a guitarist. I'm no pretty boy frontman.”

Keith had to stop and look at him. The stranger had a quiet sort of smile that betrayed his teasing. Keith, as he laughed, thought it was a smile that suited him, a smile he wanted to see again. “If you want pretty boy, you want my bass player. I'm Keith.”

There, that sweet, secret smile. “My friends call me Shiro.”

Keith felt his lips curl into a smile. He hoped it was cocky, not goofy. “I like it. Well, Shiro, thanks for the--” The music screeched again. As it returned to a normal sound, though not the sort of pop punk sound this club favored, Keith could just make out Pidge’s exasperated yelling. He felt briefly sorry for the DJ facing his tiny keyboardist’s wrath, but kicked back the rest of the beer rather than wait around to witness the inevitable. He pulled Shiro down to his height as he set aside the empty bottle, and asked at a shout, “How about we get out of here?”

Shiro nodded and followed as Keith led him out the back, avoiding the worst of the hot press of drunk dancers. It was almost too cold outside after the heat in the club. Keith was suddenly quite aware of the sweat that had soaked his clothes and face and hair because it sucked the heat from his body as soon as he stepped through the door.

Shiro stepped out behind him, and took a deep breath of the cool air. Autumn could be nice in the city, when it didn't rain. This was one of those nice nights, a bit of breeze whistling through the skyscrapers, cool not cold and smelling of ozone and grease from the Chinese place on the corner. Under the yellow light from the lamp above the door, Keith admired Shiro. His shirt was stuck with sweat to his back, but obviously fit him well. He was muscular, broad shouldered with a narrow waist and Keith thought it was absolutely unfair that the man -musician- that he’d been watching all night looked like he belonged in a superhero movie whereas Keith looked like… well, a punk.

Keith met Shiro’s eyes and recalled suddenly his third foster mom’s reprimand. _It's rude to stare, Keith._ “Um…” He cast around for something to say to fill the silence and only found, “So, your hair. Is that why your friends call you ‘Shiro?’” He gestured to the white tuft that hung over Shiro’s forehead. Shiro’s eyebrows shot up, and Keith babbled on, “Because ‘shiro’ is Japanese for ‘white’ so I assumed… nevermind, it's dumb.” His foster mom’s voice in his head again, _Don't comment on people’s appearance, Keith, it's rude._

“No, sorry, you just caught me off guard.” Keith blinked in mild surprise. “People don't usually make the connection. I guess not that many Japanese speakers in this area. But no, my last name is ‘Shirogane,’ so they just shorten it to Shiro. The hair is just a genetic coincidence. My dad has had a grey streak since he was 24, too.” Keith started walking in the direction of the street, and Shiro went with him.

“My mom was Japanese,” Keith explained, meandering down the mostly empty sidewalk. “I haven't seen her since I was a kid, but I took Japanese in high school to help remember her, y’know?” He frowned, and changed the subject without tact. “But you. Cello huh? Have you been playing since you were a kid? Because imagining you three feet tall trying to play a giant instrument is actually funny.”

“Tell me about it. My mom has pictures.” Shiro laughed, sweet and sincere, and Keith had a small existential crisis over his place in the same world as this man. “I started playing violin when I was little. My dad had me play most of the strings actually. I liked cello though so,” he shrugged, “I kept up with it. I went to school for it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Now I play with orchestras.” Was it the light or was his smile cast in sadness? Keith watched his companion’s face intently, walking on autopilot.

“Hey, what’s with the turnaround?” Keith asked lightly. He spun a step to walk backwards so he could better face Shiro. “In there you sounded like you loved performing. Don’t like your orchestra?”

“Oh, I do. They're wonderful and talented people,” Shiro assured him. He shrugged again. “It's just, me. I don't remember feeling like you look on stage anymore.” Shiro fell silent, and Keith fell back in step beside him. Silence ruled comfortably for a while.

Keith broke it. “It's alright, you know. To lose that feeling. I do too, sometimes. What's important is that you can't lose your music.”

“I'm not so sure.”

“You can’t,” Keith said matter-of-factly, grabbing Shiro’s arm to stop him. “Music isn't something that goes missing. It’s always there for you. It lives and breathes with you. Music isn’t a thought or feeling in your head; it’s something in your blood.” Keith stepped back, realizing a little belatedly he might have been too intense. But Shiro, under the unflattering yellow light of a street lamp, was smiling softly again. Keith bit his lip, needing to physically fight the urge to kiss the man.

“That was… really beautiful, Keith.” _You’re really beautiful. The way you say my name is beautiful._ Keith’s thoughts derailed hard. The smile tugging at Shiro’s lips was begging to be kissed, and the yellow lamp light turned his gray eyes gold. Keith couldn’t stop looking at him. Shiro, in return, stared back at Keith. “What are you looking at?” he asked eventually, brushing nervous hands over clothes that barely had a wrinkle.

Impulsively, Keith snatched up those nervous fingers. “You,” he offered in reply. His own naked honesty made him shiver, or maybe it was the chill in the night air. Keith blinked and looked up, away from Shiro’s marvelous eyes. The moon was full and the sky seemed starless between its brilliance and the city’s light pollution. When he came back to earth, Shiro was still looking, smiling, at him. “I live down the next block,” Keith said, “if you don’t have other plans for the night.”

Shiro gave the hand still holding his a squeeze, and Keith thought Shiro might as well have been holding his heart not his hand with how it started hammering out a new beat in his chest. “I’d like that,” came the reply Keith had hoped for. He spared another moment’s stare for Shiro, then tugged him along, his own smile playing at his lips.

 

\---

 

Keith was proud to say he didn’t fumble his keys like the boys in movies did when bringing someone home. It may have helped that, unlike Pidge’s hefty ring of keys and charms, he only had two on his ring. The apartment, as he welcomed Shiro into it, didn’t look like much. Two bedrooms, a tiny bathroom (which was clean), and a decent sized kitchen (which was less so) bordered the walls of a rather spacious living room. Where most people had a television, Keith and Hunk had a drumset, a keyboard, and an acoustic guitar on a stand. Cases for Lance and Hunk’s trumpet and saxophone were tucked neatly against the wall. The couch was a well-worn affair, it’s color indescribable but it looked comfortable. It was better than a cheap studio apartment, but the wallpaper still peeled away from the walls and the ceiling had water stains.

“It’s not much, but it’s the best home I’ve got,” Keith said, locking the door behind Shiro.

“It’s cozy,” Shiro commented. He looked around, noting the well-loved couch and the crocheted blanket that rested on its back. Keith let him walk around, let him inspect the dust on the windowsill and the dustless instruments. He sat on the couch while Shiro inspected the guitar, thinking of what expression Shiro would make if he played something for him now. Would it still be that enraptured awe that had filled his gaze at the bar?

The heavy weight of someone sitting close to him roused Keith from his daydreaming. “You take good care of the instruments,” Shiro said.

“They’re what pays the rent. Of course we do.” Keith faced the other man properly and started, “Shiro…”

The kiss surprised him, but Keith still made the first move to deepen it, sliding his hand up to cup Shiro’s face. He tilted his head a little, and there, a perfect fit against each other, where their noses weren’t smashed against another’s cheek. Keith knew his mouth probably tasted like warm beer, and he almost regretted taking it, but Shiro didn’t seem to mind as he curled his tongue against Keith’s.

Keith didn’t want to break for air, but he needed to. He pulled away and said, breathlessly, “My bed’s more comfortable than the couch.”

Shiro kissed his neck, and Keith didn’t want to admit how hard it was to keep his lips sealed shut around the moan that threatened to be voiced. “Lead the way,” Shiro answered him, breath hot against Keith’s ear. Keith all but scrambled over the arm of the couch to pull Shiro into his bedroom. The bed was a tangled mess, but at least the floor was relatively clear of clothes. Shiro sat on the bed at Keith’s gentle nudging and toed off his shoes. Keith stood between his knees, enjoying the height advantage for once as Shiro tilted his head up for another kiss. He tasted like starlight and promises to be kept, and Keith mouthed those promises against Shiro’s skin as he bared it, carefully undoing buttons as he knelt.

Shiro leaned back on his hands, letting Keith push his shirt open. He coaxed Keith to move back up for another kiss, and Keith followed his direction, followed him back on the bed when Shiro scooted back further, followed the hands that tugged him down chest to chest. Keith slipped his fingers through the longer strands of Shiro’s hair. Shiro slipped his hands beneath Keith’s shirt, smoothing his palms reverently over the skin of his back. The look in his dark gray eyes- when Keith pulled away enough to see it- shifted the beat of Keith’s heart; he wasn’t sure whether it was racing or if it had stopped entirely.

Getting out of the rest of their clothes was a blur that Keith didn’t entirely remember: he was laughing as he got tangled in his sweaty, too-tight shirt; Shiro’s lips were on his pulse and his hands were sliding slowly down his back, over his ass, taking his pants with them; then he was making eye contact with Shiro as he caught the zipper of his fly between his teeth and pulled. That must have been sexy, because Shiro flushed from his ears to his chest and didn’t try to silence a groan. Keith hooked his fingers in both pants and underwear and pulled slowly, revealing fair skin inch by teasing inch. He pressed his lips to one bare hipbone, then the other, and kissed lower the more skin he bared. Shiro was half hard when Keith pulled his underwear down to his knees, and his erection grew as Keith paid homage to his thighs. Open mouthed kisses left glistening wet spots on the insides, and Keith shucked the last of Shiro’s clothes off to put himself between his legs.

Keith sighed, and inhaled the musky smell that was distinctly Shiro’s, and wrapped his fingers around his length. “Mmh--” Above him, Shiro shuddered through a sigh of his own. “Keith… condoms?”

“I've got some,” Keith replied glibly. “Hmm, can I suck your dick?”

“ _Yes_ , yeah please,” Shiro said, the break in his voice dangerously close to pleading. Keith couldn't care less, though if he’d spared it half a thought his blood would have moved south at astounding speeds. As it was, he eagerly pressed his mouth to Shiro’s dick. The salt tang of sweat and musk was sharp in his mouth. Keith worked with tongue and lips on Shiro’s shaft, his hand massaging his balls. Shiro all but collapsed into Keith’s sheets at the first warm, wet touch. When Keith had kissed his way to the tip, when he dove down and took Shiro’s entire length into his mouth, Shiro melted into the bedding with a loud moan.

The sounds Shiro made encouraged Keith to continue. And continue he did, bobbing his head to the tune of _this beautiful man is falling apart in my bed because of me._ Shiro couldn't help the small shifts of his hips up into Keith's throat any more than Keith could help grinding against his bed for any friction he could manage. The desire to touch himself, surrounded in Shiro’s intimate smell, watching Shiro arch over his sheets, was driving him crazy. Keith moaned around his mouthful, purely for the shiver it sent up Shiro’s spine, and pulled slowly off, a lewd pop audible in the room. He moved his right hand from Shiro’s balls to his shaft, and slid his left into the band of his underwear. The first touch had him panting into the join of Shiro’s thighs. Then there was a hand on his shoulder, a gentle tugging accompanied by a whisper of his name, and as he had moved down Shiro’s body before, Keith walked himself back up it on his lips. He felt every minute twitch of Shiro’s muscles, the final clue that he wasn't sculpted of marble, exquisite to look at but lifeless to touch. Shiro was stunningly responsive; his small movements and sounds knocked the breath from Keith’s lungs.

Keith only got his breath when he was stealing it from Shiro’s lips. He took kisses and traded for them whispered praise. “You are _so_ beautiful. Shiro, you’re music.” Shiro put a hand between their bodies and palmed Keith through the last layer of clothing separating them. Keith moaned with abandon into the crook of Shiro’s neck.

“You sound so pretty though,” Shiro complimented. “You’re like music, too, then.”

“You absolute _nerd._ ” Keith gasped again in the midst of a laugh; Shiro was laughing too, and touching him with just the right amount of pressure. “It’s you, then,” he said, and pressed sloppy kisses to Shiro’s neck, hands fluttering over the other man's body, never lingering anywhere long. “You’re the music I’m playing. Let me play you some more, please, Shiro. I’ll sing all the pretty sounds you want.”

Shiro didn't have an answer beyond an enthusiastic nod and a breathy, “ _Yes_.” Keith shivered, pulled away from Shiro, and shivered again. He melted a little, in the way Shiro instinctively reached for him as he moved away, but the nagging voice in his head reminded him this was important. Keith returned to Shiro, condoms and lube in hand. He shimmied out of his boxers, and slid back onto the bed alongside Shiro.

Keith made every effort to learn Shiro as well as he knew his guitar. He learned the crook of his fingers that made Shiro sing, and the way to kiss that left him gasping for breath. Keith moved slowly, savoring every moment, committing every sound to memory, but impatience bubbled under his skin. Something in Shiro mirrored that, in the way his hands skimmed over Keith’s shoulders, down his arms and his waist, tugging at his hips to pull Keith down against him. Keith followed where he led. He whispered nothings into the crook of Shiro’s neck while Shiro’s lips grazed his shoulder, while Shiro’s hand slipped between them and held them together. Keith tried to time the movements of his fingers to the deft strokes of Shiro’s wrist, although he could barely think with the way Shiro touched him. They stayed that way, building their joint desire to its edge, for a little while. Intoxicating as champagne, carbonated impatience finally overtook them both. Shiro, with rushed gasp of Keith’s name, snatched up a condom and carefully removed it. Keith barely registered Shiro rolling it on him before Shiro was gently pulling at his wrist and guiding him down again between his athletic thighs.

Finally sinking into Shiro was a heaven unto itself. Keith pushed through his body’s last resistance, watched carefully the play of expression over Shiro’s angular features until discomfort settled into pleasure. “C’mon…” Shiro encouraged him, and the gray eyes that calmly met Keith’s were a slim ring of color around the pupil. Keith wondered, his thoughts lost in awe of Shiro’s face, if his were just as dilated. His name, moaned softly into the space between them, was his warning before Shiro leaned up to kiss him, hands cupping Keith’s jaw to pull him down a few inches to meet him. The flex of Shiro’s muscles around him finally brought Keith back to earth. He moved then in small and careful thrusts, gradually adjusting until those movements were long and slow and Shiro was melting back into the sheets again.

Keith chased Shiro’s lips and the smile that tugged at them, and traded again kisses for murmurs of love. There was an eternity of moments like that, gently moving with each other, before one small movement, a tiny change in the angle of Keith’s hips suddenly left Shiro gasping, clutching at his shoulders and hair, and begging, “Please, there, _Keith_ … do that again…” It changed the tempo between them. Breaths and movements picked up speed, hands held tighter, lips kissed harder, and they raced together over the edge. Keith came first, lips mouthing wordlessly at Shiro’s throat. Shiro had his head thrown back, eyes closed and long legs wrapped securely around Keith’s waist when he came moments later, muscles seizing like a vice around Keith.

The afterglow of orgasm surrounded them, hazy and golden as an autumn morning. Shiro tilted his head, guiding Keith into soft kisses. Keith obliged. “You were so good, Shiro. Christ…” His tongue felt heavy and clumsy in his mouth, tied up in feelings he couldn't put to words. Shiro opened his eyes, affection breaking over his face like the dawn when he offered again that soft, secret smile, and Keith swore his heart stopped. Everything stopped for that timeless moment.

“I'll--I’ll get a washcloth, clean you up,” Keith mumbled. The lustful flush to his face had been ebbing, but it surged again alongside an emotion Keith couldn't name. It stayed with him as he pulled away, threw away the condom, ran the tap until the water flowed warm over the washcloth. Keith liked this part, the tender caretaking of another person after sex. He came back to bed and wiped lube and drying cum off Shiro’s body, still in admiration of him. Some musicians were soft, more time spent sitting with their instrument than maintaining their bodies. Shiro wasn’t. He was hard lines and firm muscle and lust tugged low again in Keith’s belly just thinking of him.

Shiro snagged the washcloth from Keith’s hands and sat up to return the favor, cleaning cum from where it had stuck also to Keith’s abdomen. His hands were petting as much as washing, and fondness pulled Keith’s lips into a smile. It wasn’t bad, to be admired in kind. “Thank you,” he said. The words felt like a poor substitute for what he meant.

“It’s nice to have someone clean you up, after,” Shiro replied. “I haven’t had a lot of people who would.”

Keith stopped Shiro’s hands. He took the washcloth and tossed it aside, but kept his hold of Shiro’s fingers. “That was their mistake,” Keith told him seriously. He kissed Shiro once, softly slowly, and didn’t let go of Shiro’s hands, but when he pulled away he suddenly turned shy. “Hey, if you’d like to stay the night…”

“I shouldn’t--I don’t have to,” Shiro said quickly.

“I want you to.” Keith tightened his grip on Shiro’s hands, suddenly terrified of letting this beautiful man slip away. “I want you to,” he repeated, softly. “Please, stay the night with me, Shiro.”

Shiro was already nodding before Keith had finished repeating himself. Keith had never been happier to fall asleep in his dingy apartment than that night.


	2. A Soft Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hardest thing is saying goodbye, especially when your hello felt so inadequate.

Shiro woke up slowly, aware distantly of the second body in bed with him. Wakefulness was slow to come to him. His muscles were content to remain draped over the sleeping form beside him. Keith. His name was Keith, Shiro recalled through the fog of sleep. His name was Keith and he had clever fingers and lips, and he was curled up in Shiro’s arms, contentment written in every line of his body.

  
The night had to have been a dream. Meeting a person’s eyes at a concert and going home with them only worked in cheesy Top-40 love songs. It certainly didn't happen to him, and it certainly didn't end with some minor god of music wrapped up with him in sleep.  
But Keith shifted, sighed, coming slowly to his own wakefulness. He was certainly real, his hand tightening in the sheets over Shiro’s ribs while he woke up. His eyes opened. Shiro hadn't noticed their color the night before, but even in the poor morning light coming through the window, he could make out a soft glint of grey and cool blue. It disappeared in the crinkle of a smile, then a yawn. Keith stretched, cat-like, and when his jaw clicked shut on his yawn, he grinned again at Shiro.

“Good morning,” Keith said. Shiro couldn't help but notice when Keith relaxed his muscles again, he had brought himself closer.

“Good morning,” Shiro replied. It was a burst of pre-coffee bravery that spurred him to wrap his arms more securely around Keith, to scoot himself closer and press a kiss to his smiling mouth. His reward was a small, pleased noise from Keith, the flutter of eyelashes from closing eyes against his cheek. He pulled away a bare inch, nose still close enough to nudge Keith’s.

Keith opened those marvelous grey eyes, only for a second before he ducked in for one more morning kiss. Then he too pulled away, this time with a sigh, and looked at Shiro. “I could get used to this view in the morning,” he said.

Shiro felt heat rise in his face, but it also pooled contentedly somewhere around his sternum. “You could, if you wanted to,” he offered.

“Hmm…” Keith seemed to ponder it, picking idly at the fabric of his sheets over Shiro’s back. “I'm not the only one that has to want to,” he decided.

It was easier to offer indirectly than to admit out loud. Shiro drew wandering patterns with his fingertips over Keith’s skin. He’d slept with Keith. Keith understood music, he didn't look at Shiro as a prodigy, but just as a man. _You don't know anything about him_ , part of him reasoned. _But I want to_ , the rest of him replied. “I--”

The front door opened and shut. Loud voices and footsteps that creaked the floorboards interrupted. “Hunk, his keys are on the counter. He didn't get mugged on his way home.” That reasonable voice sounded like the keyboard player.

“Oy! _Pendejo!_ ” That was louder, closer, and Shiro couldn’t place it. “How about you fucking tell us before you disa--”

Keith groaned into Shiro’s shoulder as his bedroom door, already not fully closed, swung open with too much force. It banged off the wall behind it. Shiro flinched at the noise, but the man standing in the doorway didn't so much as twitch. He’d cut off as soon as he’d caught sight of two bodies in one bed.

“Lance? Hey you okay over there? Oh God, did someone break in? Did he get murdered in his bed?” A third voice. Shiro felt his flush spreading, aware of being caught in a rather compromising position.

Keith took the time now to chime in. “Hunk, I didn't die, alright? I'm fine, and I'm not alone so if you could come take Lance out of my doorway--”

“Keith, you fucking got _laid_. I take it back, that is an a-okay reason to totally ditch us, buddy,” Lance cut in. Another head poked around Lance, light brown hair a fluffy halo around large glasses perched haphazardly on their nose. Even in the normal light of the apartment, Shiro couldn’t discern the gender of this person.

They peeked curiously for a moment. “Oh, it’s the guy from the bar.” Recognition sprang into their expression, and drew the looks of Keith, Shiro, and Lance.  
“What do you mean ‘it’s the guy from the bar?’” Lance, Shiro was learning, was as expressive physically as he was verbally. He reacted with all his long limbs to the statement from his smaller friend.

“Exactly what I said, Lance,” they replied, patiently, as though they regularly explained simple statements to their confused friend. “He was at our gig. If you hadn’t been flirting with all the audience members on your side of the stage all night, you might have noticed him.” They giggled, and continued, “You probably would have said something to him too, because all he did was stare at Keith through the whole set.”

Shiro wanted to disappear. It was one thing for Keith to have noticed his staring; it was another for half the band to have noticed too. The smallest member noticed him now, too. “Aw, shit. Lance, you made him uncomfortable--”

“--What? That’s your fault--”

“--Hunk, come take your boyfriend out of your house.” They turned back to Keith and Shiro while Lance turned red and spluttered something unintelligible. Hunk--the drummer, Shiro recalled when he saw him--came over, hesitantly, and offered a wave when he made eye contact with Shiro. Shiro waved back. Lance was tall compared to the keyboardist, who was still speaking, but Hunk was even taller, and easily twice as broad. “Keith, I’m making pancakes for breakfast. Your friend is welcome to join,” they were saying. “The door’ll be unlocked, just walk in whenever.”

  
They walked out. Lance and Hunk followed, asking, “Will you please let Hunk make the mix?” “Oh, I can make the banana chocolate chip pancakes you like, Pidge.” The door to the hall shut quietly behind them, muffling Pidge’s, “Hell yeah, banana pancakes!” Keith flopped back in the bed when the apartment was finally quiet.

“‘M sorry about them,” he mumbled.

Shiro was honestly surprised. “Why?” he asked, propping himself on his elbow. “They were concerned about you. Rightly, I think. You did disappear in the middle of the city with a stranger.” Shiro brushed Keith's hair out of his face, and smiled fondly when Keith took his hand.

“Aw, if you were aiming to hurt me, I coulda taken you.” Shiro had been right about the accent the night before. Keith positively had a drawl, though he didn’t let it slip much, it seemed.

“Oh, yeah?” Shiro grinned, and grabbed for him. Keith yelped and wrestled back, laughing. He had Shiro pinned for a second, before Shiro flipped them and threw Keith onto his back. It knocked the air out of him, and Shiro made good on his advantage, and pinned Keith on the bed. Shiro was still laughing when Keith got his breath back, but he didn’t feel bad about it. Keith was laughing again, too.

He reached up and snagged his fingers in Shiro’s hair. It was messy from sleep, but no match for Keith’s, which had come undone from its ponytail and was fanned around his head in a wild mess. “You cheated,” he said reproachfully.

Shiro grinned at him again. “Maybe your friends had cause to worry.” Keith didn’t say anything; he just smiled, happily trapped in Shiro’s arms. “Hey, Keith… I can’t stay. I have to fly back to L.A. today,” Shiro said as he remembered. “I want to,” he added quickly. “Christ, I don’t want to leave, but--” Keith moved his thumbs to cover Shiro’s lips.

“Hey, slow down. When is your flight?”

“Five.”

“We’ve got some time then, right? Come eat breakfast with the band.” Keith wore a sad smile as he spoke, but he was calm, calmer than Shiro felt. On impulse, just like the night before, Shiro leaned over to kiss Keith. His mouth probably tasted stale from sleeping without brushing his teeth--on par with warm beer, Shiro thought--but Keith welcomed the kiss, cupping his hands around Shiro’s jaw. He was smiling more happily when Shiro pulled away. “If you’re going to kiss me like that, you’re going to have to fuck me before you leave New York,” Keith said with no shame. “And you’ll have to call me next time you’re in the city.”

“Run away with me; it sounds easier.” Keith laughed, and Shiro treasured it, continuing with further ridiculous requests. “Come back to L.A. and be my private musician. I’ll pay you in great sex.”

“Oh, great is it?” Keith teased. “I dunno,” he said between Shiro pecking him on the lips. “I think I’ll have to charge better than ‘great.’ Fantastic, maybe, or ‘amazing.’ You’ve got to compensate for the band losing it’s frontman, too. I think that’ll cost you an arm and a leg if you can even convince Hunk to let me go. And then convince him that planes are safe to travel in.” He held Shiro to him on the last kiss.

“I don't want this to be goodbye,” Shiro whispered.

“Then don't say goodbye,” Keith said wisely. He shoved Shiro gently off him. “Come on, then. I'm hungry and Pidge has pancake-flipping down to a science. Or an art maybe. Depends on who you ask.”

Gathering up clothes to wear was simple enough. Keith threw a clean shirt at Shiro. It fit him, just about, maybe a little tight across his chest. Keith bit his lower lip just looking at him, so Shiro was disinclined to complain. Lance and Pidge, it turned out, lived right across the hall in the apartment building. Shiro wondered if that was a result of being in a band together or if it was the cause. Keith didn't bother knocking. The door was unlocked, as Pidge had promised it would be.

Cheering erupted when they walked into the apartment. It had nothing to do with their arrival; Pidge was accepting the cheers with a grin while they replaced a frying pan onto the dirty gas stove top. Lance caught sight of them first. “You actually came! Aw man, we should have cleaned up a bit. Mama would kill me having guests over with the place like this.” If Keith’s place was where they practiced music, Lance and Pidge’s apartment was where they hung out. The living room had a TV, coffee table, two comfy looking loveseats, and beneath the TV a tangle of wires amidst which Shiro could make out two game systems.  
It wasn’t as awful a mess as Lance had made it out to be. There was a pretty decent stack of empty pizza boxes and soda cans on the coffee table, which Lance was shuffling toward their trash can. Two mesh bags of laundry sat in the doorway of a messy bedroom. The second bedroom wasn't any messier than Keith's had been, and beside the TV was a haphazard stack of video games.

Pidge grinned over her shoulder at them. “You're just in time for another flawless pancake-flipping performance!” they announced, sliding the pancake out of the frying pan to a stack of them and pouring another scoop of batter in to replace it.

Shiro walked over to them. “Glad I didn’t miss it then,” he replied. “They smell great.”

“Hunk’s got the best banana chocolate chip pancake recipe,” they told him. “And I perfected the science of the pancake flip.” Shiro leaned on the kitchen wall to watch, and Keith flopped on the couch to observe from afar.

Lance nudged him. “Hey, help me clean up,” he demanded. “Half the pizza boxes are yours.” Keith didn't want to. He wanted to watch Shiro laugh with Pidge and Hunk, wanted to watch him fit in seamlessly. Keith imagined he could do that anywhere. Keith imagined how life would be if he tried to fit in here for longer than a morning.

His hesitation caused Lance to open his mouth again, and Keith waved him off with an annoyed grimace. “Alright, I'm helping, I'm helping,” he grumbled. He gathered an armful of pizza boxes and carried them down to the dumpster behind the apartment while Lance took an overstuffed trash bag. When they came back in, Shiro was fitting the mouth of a garbage bag around the rim of the can. “You don't have to do that,” Keith said automatically.

  
Shiro paused to look at him, then shrugged and finished his task. “I don't mind,” he said, coming to his feet. “Pidge and Hunk are setting up for breakfast, so it's the least I could do, seeing as you're feeding me.” His smile was stunning, and Keith found he had no retort. Somewhere behind him, Lance snickered at his speechlessness. He was saved from further embarrassment by Pidge announcing that they were out of batter.

  
“If you're eating pancakes you better get to the table before the pancakes do,” she said. There was a mad dash for the table. They were only ever prepared for four people though and when Pidge, with a plate piled extra high with banana chocolate chip pancakes, turned around to find all four chairs taken, they stopped short. “Since I have no seat, I guess all these are mine,” they said, with such gravity they couldn't possibly be serious. Shiro laughed when the band did and made to give up his seat, but Keith’s hand on his arm stopped him.

  
“Take mine, Pidge; I've got a better one,” he said. Shiro thought it was Lance that whistled when Keith hopped up from his chair to drop himself in Shiro’s lap, but it might have been Pidge. “Shiro doesn't mind.”

“And if he does?” Shiro asked. But he wrapped his arms around Keith’s middle and rested his chin on Keith’s shoulder. Keith turned his head and would have replied had Shiro not popped up to peck him on the lips.

They both jumped at the wet slap when Pidge threw a pancake at Keith. “Stop being cute. It's gross,” they said, “and I'm trying to eat here.” True to their word, Pidge had a plate full of pancakes, drowning in syrup, fork poised ready to dig in. Lance and Hunk were serving themselves.

“Sorry, Pidge,” Shiro said sheepishly. Keith picked the pancake out of his lap, rolled it up and ate half of it in one bite, not apologetic in the least.

Pidge sighed a long-suffering sigh. “At least he’s happy.”

Keith smiled and shrugged and dragged more pancakes onto his plate while he chewed the last of the one that had been thrown at him. Shiro had no reply but a fond smile for Keith when he added pancakes to Shiro’s plate as well. He remained quiet and a little pensive while the four of them chattered over breakfast. His train of thought meandered from wondering if Keith was usually sad, to marvelling at how nice and cozy the atmosphere was, to realizing with a little surprise that he didn't want to leave after breakfast if it meant going back to his apartment in L.A., with its sterile coldness. Keith’s elbow gently nudging his ribs pulled him out of his thoughts again.

“Hm?” he said distractedly.

“You alright there? We can be a lot, but you seem a little…” Keith trailed off, a small frown creasing his forehead, and he wiggled his hand in an approximation of uncertainty. After all, he didn’t really know what Shiro was usually like, did he?

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry,” Shiro apologized, “I just realized I’ve never done this before.”

“Never had pancakes?” Pidge asked.

“Never had breakfast?” Hunk contributed.

“Never spent the morning with your one-night-stand?” Everyone in the band shot Lance a glare. Shiro just blinked at him in surprise. Lance shrugged it off. “Hey, it’d be a first for me too, y’know!” he answered their looks.

“No, none of that,” Shiro shook his head. “Although, I guess, yes, Lance? I don’t really do one-night-stands though, so that would be first for me at all. I’ve never done breakfast like this,” he continued. “With all the talking, and friends around a table, and, and… atmosphere. It’s nice.” Shiro didn’t realize he was smiling at his pancakes until he noticed how quiet it had gotten. The band was looking at him with expressions that ranged from pity to shock to determination.

“Never?” asked Hunk.

Shiro shrugged. It didn’t bother him that he hadn’t before, nor did Hunk’s pity bother him. “Only child of strict Asian parents,” he answered.

“Oh… Gotcha,” was Lance’s contribution. His expression had melted from shock to understanding with the explanation. “Listen, coming from the household of a strict Cuban mother, my table was always way too full of kids--my family is fucking huge, man--but strict parents let nothing slide so that makes total sense.” He reached out and put a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “Glad we got you for a morning, though. Now you see what you’ve been missing.”  
“Yeah, we told Lance the same thing when he moved in with me and I didn’t clean everything every day,” Pidge added. She snickered. “But he still goes all clean freak when people come over.”

Lance sighed. “No, Pidge, I’ve just grown accustomed to your mess.”

And just like that, the atmosphere was lighter with laughter. Shiro had been inducted into the conversation, and his heart squeezed a little at the easy way they blended him into their morning like milk into coffee. The pancakes dwindled until Keith and Lance were fighting over who got the last one (Pidge stole it while they argued, to Shiro’s amusement), but the conversation never seemed to peter out. Keith’s bandmates were fascinated that he played cello and could sit down and play things at Pidge’s keyboard, but could barely pluck out “Hot Cross Buns” on Keith’s guitar. When there was nothing more interesting to talk about, they all but dragged him across the hall to see what he could play.

Time passed, and eleven o’clock approached, bringing a small amount of anxiety to Shiro. “I’m supposed to check out of my hotel at eleven,” he told Keith. “I sent Coran a message last night and he’ll pack things up for me and take care of it, but I don’t know if he can fend off my father’s questions for too long.” He didn’t want to leave. Shiro had enjoyed the last three hours more than much of the last few months. But he knew his father would ask questions, demand why my son hadn’t been present for the hotel’s breakfast or for checkout, where he would be for the few hours between checkout and catching their flight west.

He didn’t want to leave.

He had to.

“I’ll walk you to the hotel,” Keith offered, putting his guitar away on it’s stand. “Or call you a cab.”

“I could do with a walk,” Shiro said with a shy smile.

 

Pidge and Hunk and Lance bid him an enthusiastic goodbye. “Hey, we better see you again, alright!” chased him out the door. Keith tucked his keys away in the pocket of his jacket, and led the way out of the apartment building. Shiro walked quietly beside him down the street. Words stuck in his throat again. He wanted to promise he’d be back, tell Keith to let Pidge and the others know he would be, that he had every intention to return.  
Intent didn’t get him far with his father though. Instead, he slipped his hand into Keith’s and said, “Thank you.” He squeezed Keith’s fingers. “That was the best morning I’ve had in a while.”

Keith didn’t say anything, but he leaned against Shiro’s shoulder and twisted his hand to lace their fingers together. “I’m glad,” he said finally. “It was a good morning. One of the best I’ve had recently, too.” Keith led the way back toward the bar, a slow pace like the one they’d taken on the walk to his place last night. Shiro kept walking past it, regaining his bearings at the brick and neon face of the building, but didn’t speed up. They were quiet but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was as easy a silence as conversation had been in Lance and Pidge’s apartment.

There was another pang in his chest. “I wish I didn’t have to go,” Shiro said suddenly.

Keith stopped and tugged his hand to get Shiro to stop, too. When Shiro turned to face him, Keith popped up onto his toes to kiss him. “You can come back, whenever you want. Give me a call if you’re in town. The guys and I play at that bar a lot. We can do this all over again.”

“Keith, I like you,” Shiro blurted. “I told Lance this morning. I don't do the one night stand thing. Not usually. I want to take you on a date or something, shit.” He babbled and color rose to his face as surprise registered across Keith’s.

Keith’s composure, surprised as it was, broke completely with a light chuckle, which built until he threw his arms around Shiro, laughter shaking his whole body. Shiro laughed along with him, a little uncertainly. “You wanna grab coffee?” Keith asked, laughter putting a jubilant air to his tone. Keith was beaming, and looking at Shiro the same way he’d looked at him last night. Shiro couldn't help the smile of his own.

Somewhere in the sun-like brilliance of Keith’s joy, Shiro had forgotten about meeting his father. “Yeah! Yes, is there somewhere nearby?”

There was. Keith grabbed Shiro’s hand and didn't let go even when they walked into the coffeeshop. Shiro swapped cash for their orders, dropped his change into the cafe’s tip jar, and settled in a booth across from Keith. The atmosphere was somewhere between kitschy and hipster, and as Keith had promised him when they walked in, it served the best coffee he’d ever had. The feeling of the coffeeshop burrowed itself into his chest, a bubbling joy that couldn’t possibly burst. It itched in his fingers, looking for an escape. He wanted to play his cello, but instead he reached out and grabbed Keith’s hand again. Keith lacing their fingers while he lifted his drink was a reward unto itself.

Shiro felt jittery, nervous and excited. It was the same thrill that came before a concert, nerves humming with a sense of purpose and the intrusive thought that you could mess everything up with one note out of place. But Keith kept smiling whenever their eyes met, and biting his lip when he thought Shiro wasn’t looking, so Shiro knew he wasn’t alone with his nerves.

Conversation came easily, though if asked later Shiro wouldn't have been able to name a specific topic. They were talking long after they'd finished their coffee, and they were talking when they walked out of the coffeeshop hand in hand half an hour later. Shiro caught sight of the terrific height of the hotel amongst the other skyscrapers and it suddenly felt ominous and dark. Even the midday sun pouring light onto the streets couldn't shake him of the feeling that the hotel--and by extension his journey home-- was hanging over him like the sword of Damocles.

  
Waiting for a crosswalk light, Shiro grabbed Keith and kissed him, hard and fast. Keith stared at him with wide grey eyes, and Shiro found himself savoring every detail he could possibly commit to memory: the happy surprise in Keith's expression, the way Keith’s eyes looked in the sunlight, the lingering hazelnut-and-vanilla taste of coffee in his mouth.

  
Everything, even the smell of cigarette smoke on the street -the way Keith's nose wrinkled when he caught scent of it- so he would stop the countdown of minutes until they got to the hotel. Shiro opened his mouth, not entirely sure what he was going to say, but--

“Crosswalk light’s green,” Keith said. He tugged Shiro along, and Shiro dutifully went. He was glad for the interruption, unsure of what exactly would have come out of his mouth, but certain it would have been embarrassing. Keith kept ahold of his hand the last few, quiet blocks as Shiro’s anxieties grew.  
Truthfully, he was more prepared to leave Keith behind and fly home to L.A. than he was to face his father. There were three blocks to go, an eternity of city crosswalks and stoplights, and Shiro was already steeling himself against the stare of disapproval, the mouth framed in shallow wrinkles and a smattering of neatly trimmed graying hair set in firm line, trying but failing not to be a frown. Shiro wiped one sweating palm on his slacks and hoped Keith didn’t mind the other one. He didn’t want to let go just yet.

Keith squeezed his hand encouragingly, and Shiro looked over at him with a self-deprecating laugh. “My father’s going to kill me,” he explained. “I’ve never gone out like this the night after a performance. Never stayed the night out, at least,” Shiro amended, recalling a handful of other times he’d gone out for drinks with others from the orchestra, and at least two occasions where Coran had taken him out for drinks and proceeded to get so drunk that Shiro was the only one left with the full memory of the night. Those nights had ended in the hotel room Shiro traditionally shared with his best friend, usually with Coran hanging on the bowl of the toilet for dear life. Keith gave his hand another squeeze, and this time Shiro squeezed back.

“Will my being there make it better or worse?” Keith asked.

“I have no idea.” Better, Shiro hoped. Nothing could be worse than talking to his father alone.  
Shiro balked in the shadow of the hotel. He took a deep breath, and willed some steel into his veins. Kenji Shirogane was a man like any other. He was strict and intimidating, but he was proud of his son. That was something Shiro knew to be unconditionally true, and yet it made his fear of disappointing his father so much more acute. Certainly, one night out couldn't incur his wrath. He wasn't a child anymore.

\---

Shiro watched the evening skyline of New York fall away beneath the cloud cover. His breath fogged the thick glass of the plane window as he squinted down, windows and headlights and neon signs rebuilding the city in colored light. Shiro wondered, if his eyesight was sharper, if he could spot the particular neon sign of the bar where he’d met Keith and trace the streets back to his apartment and his music and his arms. _I am not a child anymore,_ he thought to himself. The city of lights disappeared completely beneath the clouds and Shiro settled back unhappily in his seat as the plane took him further from where he wanted to be.  
So why had it been so easy for his father lead him away?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I should probably not ignore the notification I set to update this fic... I'm on a 2-week update schedule, with a new chapter out every other Friday (or Saturday, as it were).


	3. Miles and Miles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when the thing you want most is across an entire goddamn country? What outlet do you have left?

The next weeks were a blur to Keith. The New York weather finally gave up it’s pretense of beauty, and autumn streets turned grey and blustery. The band kept busy. Black Lions played four nights a week, rotating through bars in the area. They landed a gig as an opener for an entire weekend of concert nights, which was one hundred percent thanks to Lance and his ridiculous, giant, well-connected family.

Keith sang his heart out. After every performance, when the ache in his chest hadn't abated, he wished the metaphor could be a bit more literal.

Two weeks melted into three and when he closed his eyes at night, Keith saw Shiro under the ugly yellow streetlight. Keith saw Shiro asleep in his arms, and Keith, before he fell asleep, relived the moments before Shiro left. An empty bedroom at night, with streetlights and passing cars casting odd shadows on dark walls, was the perfect place for the kind of contemplation that left Keith sick to his stomach and his heart.

 

\---

 

Shiro’s father was intimidating. Shiro looked just like him, though there was something softer about him that his father lacked. Maybe just that time hadn’t yet carved lines into his face that would give him a permanent look of severity. Maybe it was just that Shiro smiled more. Shiro’s father was outside the hotel, on the phone when Keith and Shiro had crossed the street toward the building.

He caught sight of them and closed the distance with purpose in his stride. The way he moved, as if each step was an inconvenience, carefully calculated to get him from one place to the next with maximum efficiency, put Keith on edge. Keith felt immediately as though he’d failed whatever first impression test there was when you met the father. His apprehension was nothing on Shiro’s. Every step his father took closer made Shiro seem to shrink.

“We’re leaving.” Talking was an inconvenience, too, words clipped short, face tight with anger. Keith flinched internally.

“What-- Why?” Whatever words Shiro had planned for his father had clearly fled in his surprise. “We have three hours before we have to even be at the airport.”

“Because you thought it nothing to stay out all night without telling me where you went. Nothing to come back after we were to check out of the hotel. No, Shiro couldn’t be bothered to answer his father’s texts--”

“My phone died, I didn’t have a power bank--”

“If you’d bothered to check them,” Shiro’s father continued acidly, “you’d see our flight was moved up. You’re lucky you had Coran to pack your things for check out. _Coran,_ of all people, was more responsible than you last night. He couldn’t even tell me where you went. What were you thinking, Shiro?”

Keith couldn’t read the expression on Shiro’s face when his father asked that but he could feel acutely the tremble in his fingers. Throughout his father’s tirade, Shiro never once let go of Keith. Throughout his silent response to the question, he didn’t let go either. Keith knew what silence meant. _I didn’t think,_ his own silent replies had so often said. _I just… felt._

Shiro’s father knew what that silence meant. He sighed his understanding, “It’s fine, Shiro. Just get in the car, we have a plane to catch.” Keith followed his gesture to the slick black car idling on the shoulder, and surprised himself by dropping Shiro’s hand first. Shiro’s father noticed. “Who is this?”

Keith didn’t hear Shiro’s answer. The world fell away for a minute, maybe two. It never occurred to Keith, in his time with Shiro, that Shiro had money. A car that nice, even if it was a rental, spoke volumes of his wealth. Of course he had money. He played with an orchestra in New York even though he lived on the other side of the country. He lived in LA. Keith wondered if he played in orchestras for movies, wondered if he’d sat in a theater listening to Shiro play cello and never known it was him.

Reality replaced him in the moment. Raised voices made him flinch. “I _am_ disappointed in you, Shiro! We raised you better than to disappear into a city with a stranger without telling anyone. If you couldn’t tell me, could you not have said something to _Coran_ at least?”

“Coran left me first, and it’s not his fault I didn’t tell you,” Shiro said, voice tightly controlled but almost pleading with his father. “You aren’t listening.”

Shiro’s father checked his watch impatiently as Shiro spoke. “And I’ll have an eight hour flight to listen, son, but we need to leave…” He put an arm around Shiro’s shoulders, guiding him to the car. Keith couldn’t move his feet, and his arms and tongue were leaden. Shiro glanced over his shoulder to Keith as he was ushered away, but his posture spoke of defeat, the last of his defiance struck away by his father’s professed disappointment in him.

Keith didn’t remember getting home after the black car had disappeared into traffic. He only realized, as his phone buzzed with a text message from the owner of the bar, that he never got Shiro’s phone number. Not an email, not a mailing address, and only part of a name.

 

\---

 

Remembering how he’d let Shiro be pulled away left Keith sleepless, turning what-if scenarios over in his brain as he tossed in bed. Sure, Keith was poor, but Shiro having money shouldn’t have shocked him and shouldn’t have left him shellshocked when Shiro needed him. Shiro _liked him_ , for God’s sake. Shiro had slept with him and then taken him on a date and that didn’t happen with one night stands or people who didn’t care. Moreover, Shiro had flat out said, on multiple occasions, that he _didn’t_ do one night stands, and that he _did_ like Keith. So Keith stayed awake wondering if he could have said something. If he’d introduced himself. If he’d taken Shiro’s hand when his father lead him away. If he hadn’t let go of him in the first place. If any number of things could have changed the outcome of that morning.

Shiro had told Keith how much his father's disappointment was a fear to him. Keith wondered, in the dark and the emptiness of his bedroom, if Shiro's father knew too, if Shiro's father had weaponized the soul-crushing weight of his disappointment and used it against his son that day.

Lance had enough tact not to comment on Keith’s melancholy. Hunk didn’t say anything when Keith stayed up late plucking at strings or tapping at keys. Keith knew it probably kept him up, but if he laid in bed in that oppressive silence (that silence that said, _I felt too much, I stopped thinking_ ) it was going to drown him. Pidge startled him when she dropped a parcel of staff paper on the keyboard. “Just write it down already,” they said. “I know you’re thinking up something for him. Give me enough notice, and I’ll borrow a camera from the lab at school to record you.”

Keith wondered many things in the weeks after Shiro left. At that moment, he wondered what he had done to deserve friends like this.

 

Lance laughed at him when he expressed the sentiment over pizza a few days later. “Keith, buddy,” Lance said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We are being entirely self-serving with this, because if I have to listen to the mournful notes of _All of Me_ one more time from you, I’m gonna throw the keyboard out the window.”

“You’re just jealous he can sing it better than you,” Pidge remarked, picking olives off their slice.

Hunk nudged Keith’s shoulder, and Keith turned to him as Pidge and Lance devolved into familial bickering. If Lance’s Cuban heritage wasn’t so obvious, or if Pidge wasn’t so clearly _not_ Cuban, anyone might have thought them family. “We’ve known each other for years,” he said quietly. “No way we wouldn’t support you.”

“I feel bad,” Keith admitted in a whisper. “Like I haven’t been all here for you guys. Like I haven’t been all there when we perform. I can’t get him out of my head, Hunk.”

Hunk shrugged. “You’ve always given us a hundred and ten, Keith. You can take a little for yourself. We’re doing alright.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed, having reached an impasse with Pidge. “Keith, I give you a lot of shit, but--” Pidge snorted and Lance shot her a glare. “Look, the point is, we get it. You’re our friend, and you’re head over heels for Shiro. Write him your song.” Here he shrugged. “So long’s you show up for mic check, y’know, do what you need to.”

Keith looked around at them. Pidge started picking olives off another slice of pizza, affecting indifference in favor of emotion. Keith knew that look on her though. Lance and Hunk had looks of earnest encouragement on their faces. Keith dropped his head to his knees, overwhelmed. Footsteps quietly crossed creaky floorboards, and the solid, warm weight of another person thumped beside him. It was Pidge, leaning their back against his side. She tilted her head back. “‘Patience yields focus,’” she said. “My dad always told me that. You can’t be focused right now, not on our stuff. That’s alright. We can be patient. We’ll work on stuff for the band, maybe we’ll play your song when you’re done with it.”

Keith leaned against Pidge. “Well, shit,” he murmured ineloquently. They all pretended not to notice his wet eyes.

 

\---

 

Once Keith stopped struggling to continue giving the whole of his attention to the band, he found that things went smoother. He was not immune to teasing, but they gave him more slack for mistakes, for being late, for wrong chords in practice. They forgave a few moments where he had to stop, to write down a line or a chord progression for music they hadn’t heard. Keith could tell the radio silence on the song was killing Pidge. Her curiosity, her need to know, pulled her taut, but she exercised patience with marvelous grace.

He wasn’t usually so secretive. Black Lion’s music, inspired by the myriad life experiences of the four members of the band, was usually written together, in late night jam sessions experimenting with chords and beats and sound or daytime practices stitching together verses and refrains. The process for this song was, somehow, more near and dear to Keith than he had ever expected it to be.

And once Keith allowed himself to devote more of his energy to the song, he was amazed at how it blossomed. Not one, not two, but a veritable garden of songs, papers clipped together in their bunches. Some he read through, played softly, and tore to shreds. They didn’t resonate.

Others he read through, played softly, and neatly copied in ink on fresh papers, unmarked by the repeated abuse of an eraser. These were the songs that echoed in his chest and in his veins. They thrummed like a resonant heartbeat in every part of him. They itched in his fingers and toes, left him bouncing with restless energy when he ignored them for too long.

They were cleaning up after a Tuesday night practice at the bar that Keith thought of as _theirs_ , and even after four hours of music, Keith’s fingers itched with the songs he _wasn’t_ playing. He lingered on the two foot stage as Hunk and Pidge and Lance hopped down and grabbed their coats. Autumn had turned nasty in New York, with the clouds and winds as likely to bring ice as rain. They should get home, before the weather turned sour on their six block walk.

His bandmates stopped when the soft electric hum of the speakers turning on vibrated through the air. Keith closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see them until he was done. He didn’t want to falter here. He was at Pidge’s place behind the keyboard, microphone angled just below his chin, hands resting softly on the keys without pressing.

His heartbeat was pounding in his ears out of tempo with the music in his head. He willed it to slow, to treat this like any other song, just for a moment, even if the moment was the song’s debut. He willed his voice not to stick like taffy behind his teeth, and his fingers to remember the skills he worked years to master.

And then Keith started to play.

It was easier than he thought, even with his heart racing. The tune that had itched in his fingers poured out of him, needing to be heard by someone, someone in particular but right now anyone would do. The words, too, flowed freely as water past his lips to the microphone until the empty bar was full of the sound of how spectacularly _hard_ Keith had fallen for Shiro. Halfway through the bridge, Keith dared to open his eyes. Lance and Hunk were watching him, Hunk looking dangerously close to tears, and Lance with his hand on Hunk’s arm in comfort or surprise. Pidge was faithfully watching him through the screen of their phone. She flicked him a smile when she noticed he was looking.

The last chords ended, and Lance was the first to applaud softly in the silence left behind. Hunk nearly ran to jump up on stage. He was careful coming around the keyboard but he crushed Keith in a massive hug as soon as he was clear of the instrument. Pidge tapped on their phone screen for a few seconds before following Lance to the stage too.

“There’s more,” Keith said. “That one’s just been itching me all day.”

“Keith, that was--”

“Amazing! Incredible! Beautiful! Ow, Lance…” Hunk twitched away from Lance, who had poked him hard in the side at being interrupted.

“Yeah, all of those,” Lance finished. “Where have you been hiding that, Keith?”

“I sent my advisor a text,” Pidge piped up. All eyes shot to their keyboardist. She grinned impishly. “I asked him if I could sign out the sound lab for a weekend. That deserves better than a mediocre video camera in your apartment. And if there’s more,” they continued, “that sounds like an EP to me.”

 

\---

 

Keith watched the video play over Pidge’s shoulder. It was amateur, not the filmography of a band that could pay a producer to record their studio sessions, but it was high quality. Pidge wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything less. It was the first of five videos they were editing. It was the first of five songs for Shiro that she was uploading to YouTube with the slim hope the almost-stranger a continent away might find it and find his way back to Keith.

Keith watched himself lean into the microphone, lean over a piano as he sang and played his heart out. The other four songs had all of them. Lance and Hunk and Pidge had all practiced the music Keith had finally revealed to them, and although it was Keith’s soul being bared in the bars and verses, they didn’t play with any less passion. The harmonies, brought to life in a proper recording studio by the grace of Pidge’s dedication and pull in their department as a senior, still filled his ears, blending better in real life than he could have heard them in his head. He couldn’t have asked for better musicians to play them, although the underlying melody in his head whispered that he was missing a cellist.

Pidge surprised him with a CD in a slick case a week later as they both watched the upload bar climb for the second song. “A side project,” she shrugged. “My professor gave me bonus points for his class for the design.” Keith wondered if they would ever take credit for doing something sweet for someone, or if she would always put on the air that everything she did was born of selfish desire. He looked at the case, with the new logo for the band, clean and sharp, on a well-designed cover that read _The Shiro EP_. It was simple, elegant. He thought, Shiro would like it, too.

“Make sure he gets it,” was Pidge’s only comment as Keith struggled for words to express his gratitude.

“I will,” he promised.

 

The views climbed week after week. Pidge read them highlights from the comment section. Lance read the ones that included their tiny, loyal, local fanbase either professing their love or begging to know whom the song was written for or when and where they would be performing these live. The latter two always went unreplied-to. Keith wouldn’t perform the songs live for anyone other than his bandmates until he performed them for Shiro. The band unanimously stood by him in that decision. It wouldn’t be right.

But even as they combed through comments looking for one that might have been from Shiro, none of them were. Keith couldn’t remember if he’d ever told Shiro the name of the band. There were too many things they hadn’t told each other. Despair struck him in the chest as he wondered if they ever would.

Two thousand, seven hundred, and ninety. A Google search told Keith there were two thousand, seven hundred and ninety miles between New York and Los Angeles. Two thousand, seven hundred and ninety or so miles between himself and Shiro. Keith had known people engaged in long-distance relationships. Two thousand, seven hundred and ninety miles...

He didn’t know how they did it.

The distance and the inability of his music to cross it tore him apart at the seams. October had long ago become November. By the time the fifth video went up, they were halfway into December. Pidge was taking finals. Hunk and Lance were planning to visit Lance’s family in Massachusetts for the holidays. The parts of Keith that weren’t absorbed in his own problems hoped this would be the holidays over which they figured out their interest in each other so he and Pidge could stop rolling their eyes behind their friends’ backs. The parts of Keith that were absorbed in his own problems wanted the next weeks to be the first holidays he spent with Shiro.

Hunk walked into Keith’s room on the twentieth. Clothes were spread out on his bed, being neatly rolled and tucked into his backpack with a sense of urgency. Hunk perked up immediately. “Did you decide to come to Lance’s with us? We’re trying to convince Pidge to visit over New Year’s at least.”

Keith froze in the midst of putting a shirt rolled up with a pair of clean underwear in the pack. He’d forgotten Hunk had asked if he wanted to go with them, and it showed guiltily on his face and in his posture. Hunk’s shoulders drooped in disappointment. “I have to find him, Hunk. This is the best time for me to go,” Keith pleaded, giving his roommate the same reasoning he had given himself in making the decision. “The band isn’t playing for the next month. You and Lance will be out in Boston, Pidge will be down in Pennsylvania with their parents and brother…”

It really was the best time. Everything but the weather was in his favor, and he could make do with that. The weather hadn’t been for him as a teenage runaway either, and this time he was headed to somewhere warmer. Hunk was visibly warring with disappointment and understanding and concern. Keith watched his friend quietly. Hunk walked out of the room. Walked back in. Finally he sighed, his shoulders raising and lowering with the breath.

“You’re planning on hitchhiking all the way there?” Hunk asked. Keith nodded silently, begging the tremor in his hands to stop. Could Hunk see how anxious he was about going? Hunk’s posture was stooped with defeat, knowing he couldn’t talk his friend out of it. “Be careful, Keith. And talk to Lance and Pidge before you go. Actually, get Pidge to take you down to Pittsburgh with her. That cuts some of your travel, and you’ll be safe with them if you change your mind…” Both of them knew he wasn’t going to change his mind, and that neither Pidge nor her family would try to convince him of an alternative course of action, but Keith knew it was something Hunk had to say. Even if it was only for his own comfort.

They heard the door of the apartment open and shut, and Pidge called, “Hunk? Lance says his mom wants to know if Keith’s coming for Christmas and New Year’s.”

“He’s not,” Keith answered firmly. Hunk nodded, hugging himself a little sadly, still hunched in on himself, but his face showing that his understanding nature had won the emotional war. “Can you get him off the phone for a bit? I’ve got a favor I need to ask y’all.”


	4. How Far We Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Letting go is an impossible thing when the feeling has tied itself in knots around your ribs. 
> 
> Shiro misses Keith a little too much, so he tries for a different kind of forgiveness instead.

The entirety of October and November was awful. Shiro felt like his skin was crawling, like there was a constant, insatiable  _ itch _ somewhere beneath his sternum that wouldn’t fade. It punched the breath from his lungs at two in the morning with the desperate sensation of loneliness. Shiro was frequently alone. He had lived alone in his apartment ever since he’d moved out of his parent’s house. Shiro spent time with Coran and Allura, both of whom he’d met in college and remained close friends with since, but they were all busy with their lives and their music. Coran was a music teacher, and had been teaching independent lessons since Shiro was in college. Allura had been his classmate at Juilliard, and played violin for local theaters and had, on occasion, performed in an ensemble for a movie score. She was busy with one now.

The time spent alone didn’t often bother him. If Coran and Allura were busy, if any of his other casual friends in the area had plans, if he couldn’t bear a night alone in his apartment, Los Angeles was bursting with life. There was always somewhere he could go, something he could do, if he needed to be around people.

No, it wasn’t the aloneness that bothered him. 

It was the sudden and overwhelming loneliness. 

Shiro found himself, in the first few days back, wondering what Keith was doing. New York was three hours ahead of Los Angeles. Shiro calculated the time difference.  _ He’d be eating lunch, probably at the bar performing, I wonder where they practice before shows…  _ He missed Lance and Pidge and Hunk when he made breakfast for himself. He didn’t answer the phone when his father called. Shiro answered for his mother once and was disappointed when she pestered him for not calling his father back. He gave her a short goodbye and threw phone across the room onto his couch. It bounced twice on the cushions before clattering to the laminate floor. 

Truth be told, Shiro hadn’t forgiven his father, even weeks later as Thanksgiving approached. There was a sore spot that had been devastated from the moment he’d stepped out of the car at the airport to learn that their flight had not, in fact, been moved up. Every further realization that he had no way to find Keith again poked that spot hard. Shiro didn’t even know his last name. That was the sort of line from an eighties movie or a country song, and Shiro might have found it funny if it wasn’t making it so difficult for him to get back in contact with Keith. No last name, and an entire city full of people, plenty of whom, he was sure, were named Keith. Shiro had never actually gotten around to asking for Keith’s number, or giving Keith his, so that was out. He didn’t even know the name of the band or the bar they’d gone to, so the frustrated searches for “Keith band New York bar” were, ultimately, futile.

The three hours Shiro and his father had spent in the airport waiting for the five o’clock flight had given resentment plenty of time to fester. Shiro was unwilling to make a scene in as public a place as an airport coffeeshop, but that his father had lied to him put a frostiness to his silence that bystanders were certain to notice. At least he wasn’t having a shouting match with him. 

A shouting match probably would have made him feel better, though. Shiro turned thoughts over endlessly for those three hours, considering the ramifications of getting a taxi back into the city, of trying to navigate the grid of streets back from the hotel to the bar to Keith. Shiro could have told his father he’d take a later flight back to L.A. and made good on Keith’s suggestion that Shiro fuck him before he left New York. He could have pulled away when his father led him to the car, kissed Keith on the street in front of his father before he left, asked for his number or typed his own into Keith’s phone and paid for the promise to text him sometime with another kiss or three.

In the middle of November with several weeks without communication under his belt, Shiro didn’t even know if Keith still cared about him, or if he was just a-guy-I-slept-with. It was that thought that made him feel sick, the memory of Keith dropping his hand and watching him get into the car with a blank look on his face jumping forefront in his head. Coran couldn’t help. Even Alfor, back in New York, wasn’t sure who had been playing that night, though he promised to be on the lookout for them. It wasn’t, he admitted to Coran and Shiro, his usual music scene, but it had been a convenient place to meet after the concert. Shiro wondered, disheartened, if he should give it up.

His father called daily, and each ring carved out a painful reminder that it wasn’t ever going to be Keith calling. Shiro tried to practice, if only for an excuse as to why he wasn’t answering his phone. It was the only one his father had ever accepted. He picked up new music, old music from college, some of his favorites and compositions he’d never really liked. The worst of it was that it all sounded wrong to him, in a way no amount of tuning and retuning could fix. He sat in the second bedroom of his apartment, which housed his cello, a violin in its case, and an upright piano among shelves of sheet music, and stared at the lines and notes without comprehension. Shiro thought of what he’d told Keith when he first met him--that he felt, lately, like he was losing whatever connection he’d ever had to music. It didn’t feel like it belonged to him anymore, more like he was a foreigner stumbling through a strange language. He must have dreamt his fluency in it. Twenty-seven years, and music had finally given up on him.

The conviction in Keith’s voice, the surety in his eyes as he pledged to Shiro that music was something that lived and breathed within him suddenly struck him. And it struck him hard, because Keith was  _ wrong _ . There wasn’t something in his heartbeat and veins pushing his fingers to form the chords at the piano or on the neck of his cello. There wasn’t some cathartic release in playing sad sonatas because he missed the atmosphere in Pidge and Lance’s apartment. There was only restless energy that even going for a run didn’t relieve. It built up, putting a tension in his body that made Shiro want to scream. Even angry fugues, his fingers stomping on the keys of the piano in violent fortissimo, didn’t heal the wound inside him that bled him of any passion for playing. 

So Shiro stopped. He clicked shut the latches on the case of his cello, closed the lid of the piano. He found the key to the second bedroom. He locked the door on the music and he buried the key in the junk drawer in his kitchen amid the other bits and pieces of his life that fell apart and got lost.

It left him with too much time. Shiro picked up a new video game for the sorely unused console sitting beneath his TV, one he’d seen in Lance and Pidge’s collection. It was fun. It reminded Shiro of the four people he met and missed back in New York, but it distracted him enough that he didn't dwell on that. He went on walks during the busy daytime, surrounding himself in the hustle and bustle of the city to get away from the sore silence of his apartment. He substituted at elementary schools for music classes. Shiro didn’t mind that. The children were bright eyed and learning. Their notes were off-key and half of them couldn’t read music, but that was okay. They were trying, they were having fun. It made him miss it, and for them alone, he tapped out melodies on a keyboard or marimba. 

Those thin notes didn’t hurt. They didn’t resonate, but nor did they cut. Maybe, slowly, he could come back to music. Maybe, slowly, music would come back to him, a language he could pick up again with time.

Shiro spent Thanksgiving with Coran and Allura, the first time in several years that he hadn’t spent the holiday with his parents. His friends gladly accepted his presence with them. Allura, being the true link between both Shiro and Coran and Coran and Alfor, Skyped her father on the other side of the continent for Thanksgiving. He grinned at his daughter, his boyfriend, and their friend gathered in front of her computer screen to greet him. 

“Glad to see you’re out and about, Shiro,” Alfor said, his voice a second behind the motions of his mouth on the screen. At the least the audio was clear. “Coran had me worried for a while there.”

Allura shot him a look over Coran’s shoulders. Shiro ignored her. “I’ve been better,” he admitted. “Any luck on your end?”

“I stopped by the bar a couple times to ask for their set list, but either they keep awful records or they just won’t give them to me out of spite,” Alfor answered. “And I’m not familiar enough with any of the local bands to recognize them by name. My students might, if I can get a list.”

“Oh, just go in and pretend to be a talent scout,” Coran said. “Or tell them how you’re a great classical professor at Juilliard and need this for yadda yadda, whatever. Name dropping gets you everywhere.” Alfor listened for a few seconds, a few beats of silence where Shiro hoped that he would try, that it could work. 

Either his hope was so plain on his face that Alfor took the bait, or he had been meaning to all along and their voices lagged on his end too, but Coran’s boyfriend smiled at the suggestion. “That could work, in fact. I’ll try after the holidays are over, Shiro,” he promised. Shiro couldn’t tell whether the tight ball of emotion wound tighter with this hope, or loosened. 

“Thank you,” he said, with feeling. Maybe it was worth not giving up.

“Dad, I’ll give you and Coran a chance to catch up,” Allura said. “I need to check on the turkey anyway.” Alfor flickered a grateful smile on the screen. Allura tugged Shiro after her. The pressure of her hand on his arm left Shiro certain she was half making an excuse to talk to Shiro alone and half being considerate of Coran and her father. 

Alone in her kitchen, Allura turned to lean against the counter when she let him go. She crossed her arms over her chest, and the look she shot him--one eyebrow raised, lips in an unimpressed line--spoke volumes of her distaste with being out of the loop. “You’re going to tell me what that was about?” Allura pitched her voice like a question, but Shiro heard the command in the statement. 

“I met someone in New York,” he started. 

“Someone?”

“Do you want to hear it or not?” Shiro asked, mildly irritated. If he was going to tell her it needed to be all at once, not this starting and stopping for her questions, each pause like a new knife twisting and bringing more hurt. Allura looked taken aback, but nodded silently. 

“His name’s Keith,” Shiro continued. He put a little space between them, leaned back against the island in the kitchen and stared passed Allura at the pattern on her tiled splash. “I met him at a bar when Coran and I went out after the performance. He’s a musician, a guitarist for a band. They were playing that night, and oh my God, Allura, you should have seen them. All of them were so… They looked happy up there, like they belonged, and the way they played!”

Shiro had to collect his thoughts for a moment. How did he share with Allura the way atmosphere in the bar, the music from the band, and the way they all looked on stage came together in a hazy amalgamation that tugged at the heartstrings? “They played like they were born doing it, like it was the most natural thing,” he said eventually, a poor substitute for a memory that no words could describe. “And I couldn’t take my eyes off Keith. Through their whole set!” Shiro laughed, a little self conscious. “I’m surprised he didn’t think I was some stalker.” 

Talking about it was strangely cathartic. Shiro had thought it would hurt more, talking about what he missed so much. He had thought it would sound as weak and tenuous as when he’d tried talking about it to his father in the car ride to the airport, but Allura, chastened from his first outburst, listened quietly and attentively. The longer he talked, the more Shiro found he had been wanted to tell it in the first place. “And they had me over for breakfast,” he was saying, “and it was like…” He searched for a proper analogy. “You remember that time in college when a bunch of us got trashed at your place, and that flautist you were dating was the only person who woke up without a hangover so she made toast and eggs for everyone?” Allura nodded. “It was like that, but without the hangovers and with more talking.”

Allura raised her eyebrows silently, her thoughts her own, but the small change in expression was encouragement to continue, so Shiro did. “I had so much fun, Allura.” It was made somehow truer by saying it aloud. A little bit of the exuberance from that month-old morning was reborn in his veins as he shared the story with Allura. The story of Hunk surprising him with a talent on saxophone, of Lance having to hunt down the mouthpiece to his trumpet the moment he saw the flash of brass. They made a good jazz band, when Pidge swapped their seat at keyboard for the one behind the drumset and Keith took over with soft blues chords against the plastic keys. Shiro told her the story of Keith and Lance battling each other with guitar riffs, of the other three musicians egging them on until clashing melodies turned into harmonies, and Shiro heard for himself why they made such a good band. 

The story of how Shiro was too shy to let Keith show him how to play guitar, so he let Pidge pull him to the keyboard instead. “I couldn't think of what to play,” he admitted from his barstool perch. Allura was finally pulling the turkey out as Shiro was finishing his story. “So I asked her, and Pidge just says, ‘Something pretty.’”

“So, what did you play?” Allura asked.

“Chopin. Nocturne No. 8.” Shiro followed that memory silently. The nocturne had always been one of his favorites, and even though it didn't sound as impressive on Pidge’s electric keyboard as on a grand piano, it was soft and pretty and the whisper of electric humming from the speakers the sound played through gave it something the piano didn’t have. When he’d taken his eyes off the keys to see how his small audience liked it, Pidge had closed their eyes to lean back on Hunk and enjoy it. Lance’s fingers were tapping against his calf in a way that made Shiro guess he had played classical piano once too. Hunk looked incredibly serene listening to him play, and Keith… 

Keith looked at him in the realest way. Keith looked at him like his whole world was comprised of the notes Shiro played. He leaned forward, intent, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped together, and guitar ignored where it was leaning on the arm of the sofa beside him. There was something in his eyes that tugged at Shiro's heart, and it occurred to Shiro now, sitting in Allura’s kitchen, that what he’d seen was the conviction that made Keith believe so strongly in music. 

“Not a bad choice for ‘pretty,’” Allura was saying. Shiro stirred out of his reminiscence. “I think Debussy is prettier though. Something like Rêverie or Claire de Lune…”

“Everyone knows Claire de Lune,” Shiro said derisively. 

“Oh, well,  _ sorry _ ,” Allura said with mock offense. “Were you trying to show off?”

Shiro felt his lips curling while he settled back on his seat. “A little.”

“Well, come on, show off,” she said and nudged him as she walked by. “Dinner’s ready, and you can tell me the end of this story over food.”

He didn't tell her the end over Thanksgiving dinner. It was the end that hurt. He didn't want to sour a good meal, so Shiro left Allura with the fond thought of him playing Chopin for an apartment audience until they had set aside their pie plates and taken up cups of coffee. He looked into his cup as of it held the solutions to his problem, as if he could scry the ten digits of Keith's phone number or the letters of his last name in the swirls of creamer and steam. But they remained swirls and vapor and told Shiro nothing at all, except maybe how hopeless it was to hold on to this anymore. He took a sip and said, “I didn't want to leave New York.”

He let it hang on the air. “Keith walked me back to the hotel,” he told his coffee cup. He didn't know if the cup listened, but he knew Allura and Coran were. Coran, at least, already knew what had happened. “I had meant to go talk to my father about staying in New York for a little while longer. I could practice there, and fly back to L.A. if a performance came up out here.” Shiro took a deep breath. “But he was so… angry. Disappointed. I forgot everything I wanted to tell him. And Keith, well, you know how intimidating my father can be. He swept me off to the airport before either of us knew it was happening, I think.” Shiro’s voice grew softer. His coffee cup didn't mind.

“He lied to me,” Shiro said. It felt like a confession. “He was mad about me staying out all night, mad I came back the next day with a stranger, and he  _ lied _ so he could take me back. I didn't even get Keith’s number before I left. I don't even know his goddamn last name.” He took another sip of coffee and wished he hadn't put so much creamer in it. Then he could have blamed the bitter taste in his mouth on the coffee and not his words. 

“Can't you go back?” Allura asked.

“I don't even know where to start looking if I did,” admitted Shiro. 

“Alfor’s been trying to hunt them down for us,” Coran told Allura. “You heard though, it hasn't come up with much.”

“He’s stubborn. He'll keep trying,” Allura said with confidence.

“His daughter is just like him,” Coran quipped. 

Shiro let them change the course of the conversation. He did it gladly, in fact. He didn't want to tell them that after this, if Alfor couldn't come up with any clue of where to find Keith, he was giving up. 

Thanksgiving felt like an appropriate time to come to that conclusion. He was thankful to be around good friends, thankful for friends across the country who were set on helping him. Shiro was thankful for the hours he’d been able to spend with Keith. He could count them on his fingers, and it felt like too many of them had been sleeping, but he was thankful for them all the same. 

Even if they tasted bittersweet.

Even if they were fouled by the memory of his argument with his father.

In giving his thanks for those short, good times, Shiro came to a second conclusion. “I should talk to my father,” he said, to no one in particular. Coran and Allura’s conversation came to a halt, and they both turned to face him. “I mean, I can’t be angry with him forever,” Shiro reasoned. 

“If that’s what you want,” Allura said slowly. Coran’s mouth was set in a concerned twist below his mustache, and Allura worried her bottom lip between her teeth when she wasn’t talking. “But Shiro,” Allura continued, “you know, you can be angry with him. If my father had done something like lie to me like that…” She shook her head, unable to even consider it. Alfor, of course, would never do anything of the sort, and he had raised her to stand up for herself in the face of any injustice. What Shiro had told her sounded like an awful injustice, and she was at a loss. “Just… don’t feel guilty for being angry,” she said finally. “You have every right to be, and every right to demand an apology.”

Shiro smiled quietly. They both knew an apology from his father was less likely than Keith showing up on his doorstep one morning. “I know, Allura,” he said. “It just… I don’t know. It’s uncomfortable not talking to him. Or my mom. I haven’t seen either of them in weeks, and I keep ignoring their calls and it’s a weight I don’t want to carry anymore.”

Allura stood up and crossed the room to pull Shiro into a hug. “If you need anything, absolutely anything, you give me a call,” she said, ferocity giving a sharp edge to her tone. If words were knives, the sentence would have had a blade sharper than a razor. Shiro hugged her tight in return. That edge was not for him. 

“I will,” he promised. “Thank you.” Four words weren’t enough to tell how much he appreciated Allura, and her friendship, and her ferocity on his behalf, but they would have to do. Right now, they were all he had. 

“Coran, how are your students coming along?” He asked. A tactless change of subject was the only way to pull attention away from his damp eyes. 

Coran’s eyes lit up. The only thing that got him more animated than talking about Alfor was talking about his students. He launched into a description of the progress each of his private lesson-takers were making, celebrating the smallest success as his own. Annie was finally holding her bow correctly. Jesse was making fast progress on music for his high school musical in the spring. 

“Some of them were talking about you, you know,” Coran said off-hand to Shiro. “I didn’t realize you were substitute teaching.”

Shiro shrugged, “I needed something to fill the time, and their teacher is on maternity leave.”

Allura side-eyed him, then, considering his answer worth further inspection, leaned closer. “All that time thinking of your almost boyfriend, huh?”

Shiro turned red. “Maybe. I can't sit around in my apartment all day,” he said defensively. Allura was too good at teasing him. He pushed her away.

“Nooo,” she whined. “You should come help me practice. I've been struggling through a duet for weeks and here I thought you were busy with practices when you’re just taking substitute teacher appointments.” Allura pouted, a normally charming pout. One which would ordinarily convince Shiro to compare her with a puppy and agree to help her. 

This time he only withdrew. “I haven't been playing much lately,” Shiro whispered. He put aside his coffee cup and stood before he could dwell too much on the pity, surprise, or both on their faces. “I should get going, it's late. I need to call my dad.” Shiro ignored the look that passed between them as he went to let himself out. Allura followed him to the door.

She watched him pause to put his shoes on. “Shiro,” she started.

“Please, Allura,” he asked. “I can’t. There's this… anxiety, this energy that builds up when I try to play and I can't stand it. And I can’t get it to go away once it’s there,” he added, almost an afterthought. Shiro had spent how many hours working off that energy? Playing had once been cathartic, now he needed a two hour gym trip and a run around town to wind down from holding his cello. What had happened to the calm he’d once felt with the instrument and the bow in his hand? Perhaps he’d left it in New York with Keith.

Allura pulled him into an embrace, tight and fast, then held him at arm’s length. “Don’t punish yourself for losing him,” she said. It always amazed Shiro how Allura saw through him. Shiro didn’t make any promises. Allura didn’t force him to. She just let him go, and watched from the bright rectangle of her open door as he got in his car and pulled away.

  
  


Driving was cathartic in a way that playing wasn’t anymore. The engine thrummed quietly under the hood, the vibrations reverberating in his hands on the steering wheel. Shiro could close his eyes at a red light and pretend the vibrations were his, wrung out of a cello in a quiet room. Shiro could pretend until someone behind him honked and reminded him that red lights turn green. 

But the street was almost empty tonight, and Shiro took the long way home. A long drive for a long conversation. Slowing to a stop as a streetlight blinked from yellow to red, he dialed his father’s number. The ringing played from his speakers, synced to his Bluetooth. Shiro jumped in his seat at the sudden volume of it and snatched for the volume control. He twisted the knob, trying to dial down the speed of his heart too. The light changed. He pressed the gas. The phone rang. He waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited. Did phones always ring for so long? Did his father always take so long to pick up? Shiro hadn’t even resolved his nebulous thoughts into firm sentences; what was he going to say?

“--Hello?” 

Shiro jolted, swerved a little on the empty road. “Hey, dad,” he said. 

“Shiro! It’s good to hear from you sweetie. Happy Thanksgiving!” A feminine voice called out, a little crackly. He was on speaker then.

“Hey, mom, happy Thanksgiving. It’s nice to hear you, too. How was dinner?” This was a safe topic. She could talk about food all night, and he could collect his thoughts. His mom rambled cheerfully about how many leftovers there were, she’d bring some over; she made sweet potatoes the way he liked them and pumpkin pie the way his father liked; and how was Shiro’s dinner? He’d been with friends, hadn’t he?

“You remember Allura and Coran, mom,” he said. “I went to school with them. Coran plays with the same orchestra I do, sometimes. We had dinner at Allura’s place.” She cooed over that, remembering his school days, bright eyed and flying across the country to attend Juilliard. His father didn’t talk. Shiro wanted to know why.

“Hey, mom,” he interrupted gently. “Do you mind if I talk to dad for a little bit? I need to ask him about something.” 

“Of course, dear,” she said. “I’ll stop by tomorrow with some leftovers, okay?” 

Shiro could hear the press of a button. Then his father’s voice again, “You wanted to talk.” The same sharp edged tone from months ago.

“Are you surprised?” Shiro was, by the venom in his own voice. Where had that poison risen from?

“Well, you haven’t wanted to talk for the last month, so I suppose that I am,” his father said cooly. Shiro wished he hadn’t called. He wished he was talking face to face, so he could be certain whether the sneer he thought he heard in his father’s voice was really there.

He also wished he could sound as calm as his father. “Yeah. Can you blame me though, dad? You  _ lied to me _ about the flight out of New York. You want to explain what the point of that was?” Shiro didn’t know he could sound so  _ sharp _ , like his teeth were razor blades to make every word that slipped passed them cutting. Like he was his father. 

“I’m not sure I like your tone, Takashi--” his father started.

“I’m not sure I liked being whisked across the country without a say, but here I am anyway,” Shiro interrupted. He passed a speed limit sign. His speedometer was well over it. Shiro grit his teeth and stepped off the gas. Speeding felt more like what he wanted though; even sixty felt like a crawl. “So,” he continued, trying to keep his voice even, “are we gonna talk about it, or am I going to just hang up again?”

If it wasn’t for the crackle of his speakers, Shiro would have thought his father had beaten him to it. But no, a glance at his phone showed the call was still active. His father was just silent. Then he sighed. “Can we not do this over the telephone, Takashi? I hate not being able to see your face when I talk to you.”  

“I’m a long term substitute right now and you’re flying out to Japan on Tuesday,” Shiro said flatly. “When are we supposed to do this? Neither of us want to go out tomorrow.” Every restaurant would be crowded with Friday-sale-fiends. Shiro made it almost a holiday to avoid them by staying home that day. He’d learned that from his father; neither of them was wont to breaking that particular tradition just yet. 

“When I get back, perhaps? It’s only for two weeks. Surely this conversation can wait another few weeks? You’ve put it off this long.” The exasperation in his father’s voice scraped down Shiro’s spine like nails on a chalkboard. As if he was at fault. As if he wasn’t trying to make peace now. As if  _ he _ \--

“Three weeks, then,” Shiro said tightly. “The kids don’t get off for the holidays until the twentieth.” 

“So late this year,” his father tsked. 

“We can go the twenty-first. Make it a lunch,” Shiro said. 

“Very well. It’s a date.” Shiro wondered if his father chose the phrase to be biting, or if he was overthinking everything. His father wasn’t that cruel. It was a common enough phrase.

“Have a safe flight, dad,” Shiro said, and he hung up. 

His car was silent but for the rumble of its engine. The empty road tempted Shiro to floor his gas pedal, to speed like his blood pressure demanded. Shiro told himself he’d go for a run when he got home. He wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse after the non-conversation. 

He was sure, he wished Keith would be there when he talked to his father. Nothing was worse than facing him alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter hasn't been beta'd, just edited. My dear friends who normally beta for me are dealing with some rough times and are super busy. If anyone has any comments on the chapter, feel free to post them here or message me on [tumblr](http://ariosedreamer.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Also I realized most of the way through the chapter that I had messed up my timeline and so had to change the ending a bit;; Maybe it works out better this way, and then you all won't hate me for the better part of a month.


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